


Mercury Retrograde

by sprout_mole



Category: OMORI (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Multi, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Science Fiction, Space Pirates, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28714905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprout_mole/pseuds/sprout_mole
Summary: Capt. Space boy keeps entangling himself with the most beautiful girl in the world, for better or for worse.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

> _“Hello dad! I’m writing this because I know you don’t want to see my face right now. My life has been so fun recently! Me and Sweetheart took a trip to snowglobe mountain, and we shared a sno-cone. They are SUPER expensive, but SUUPER worth it! We walked around all day and stayed up all night stargazing, and then I realized I could live like that - with her - forever. I think I’m going to ask her to marry me next month, which is why I’m writing this letter to you. I know you don’t approve of our relationship, but she’s my everything. You can’t stop me._
> 
> _Sincerely, Space Boyfriend.”_


	2. 1.1: sugar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Space Pirates, Sweetheart, and Alien Plants.

He had always loved the smell of sugar. When he was younger, his father used to bring him to otherworldly carnivals where cotton candy spun itself and candied berries jumped into one’s mouth as the sound of spine-chilling yet exciting music came from everywhere, and nowhere. It was a memory he treasured, and thought about with the same fondness as the memory of meeting Sweetheart for the first time. That beautiful girl, in his arms, head over heels for his love. He felt warmth radiate from deep within his chest, and hugged her a little bit tighter as to not let her slip away.

“Space-y, what are you doing?” she asked with that chittery voice, giggling in between her words. Space Boyfriend looked at her with a playful smile as her voice echoed across the halls.

“Nothing!” he said. “Just thinking.”

She arched an eyebrow, put her gloved hands on his and laced her fingers between his. They laid across one of the many silk-clad sofas in Sweetheart’s castle, still waiting for the last sprout mole chef to finish and serve one of many late-night desserts. 

“You’re so beautiful, did I ever tell you that, my sweet jelly-filled donut?” he sighed. She scoffed, and while he could not clearly see her face from behind he knew that she was rolling her eyes.

“Only five million times, space-y,” she said, before quickly adding “but you know I always love hearing it from you.” they continued in their own comfortable silence, quietly listening to the backward whisperings of the sprout moles who were still awake guarding the various corridors and the soft ‘klink’s of kitchenware.

At some point they had fallen asleep, and Space Boyfriend woke up by a loud argument nearby. He recognized the voices immediately, and chose to stay put in the subtle indent he’d made on the sofa cushions when Sweetheart still was laying on top of his chest. The ease of breathing felt cold. The golden rim on the sofa felt cold, the marble floor felt cold and the apple pie slice left on a shattered glass platter on the floor felt cold. Arguing was not his strong point, nor was confrontation. Which is why he let the sprout mole get kicked across the marble for waking her, and he let her take out her frustration on what was essentially a semi-sentient vegetable. So he stared at the kitchen door, shuffling toward the fridge upstairs.  
He prepared a bowl of strawberries, her favorite, and two cups of honey sea-cow milk on a platter. Then he went downstairs, walked as loudly as he could (but not too loud as to scare Sweetheart) and turned the corner to see a huffing Sweetheart sitting on the side of a fountain. He was glad for the fountain’s white noise. He simply hushed: “It’s warm. Please drink.”

Their bare fingertips briefly interlaced as he passed the novelty mug to her. He felt more awake. 

-

The crew on the Mercury Retrograde were used to Sweetheart and Space Boyfriend’s antics during their many trips to foregin land and vast skies. Most often they would be seen sitting by the small coffee table on the upper deck, sharing a sugary smoothie and basking in the wind. Sometimes, the captain would demand all available crewmates to do something for his Sweetheart, like bake her a cake (with the few ingredients we had on board), sing in a choir (with the hoarse voices we wore), or to simply “entertain her'' which often meant that Solus, the only pirate on deck who knew how to do card tricks, had to awe her until Space Boyfriend inevidably interrupted. And when those two were together, sneaking out undetected was easy.

That was what angered Orion so much - that the very captain of once great and famous Mercury Retrograde - let his guard down so easily as soon as he met that Sweetheart. Orion, a space pirate not much younger than Space Boyfriend himself, wanted at least some integrity to be known to his fellow crew. But it had all been for nothing when news spread of their close-to-useless captain who no longer even introduced himself as “captain”. It made Orion’s blood boil, and they knew their crewmates felt the same, as the cold and pitying glances became more frequent between trips. But the cup had spilled when one time, Space Boyfriend decided to cancel a trip they had been preparing for three weeks, because his two-month anniversary was that very same day.

That day, Orion had screamed and ranted about everything, all the tiny little things that drove them mad and all the betrayal he felt about the “new captain” and his pointless orders. While they felt bad about lashing out, it felt good to have it off their chest. A Space Pirate with guilt, they said, was not a proper Space Pirate. So it took Orion (and the rest of the crew) by surprise when the usually stubborn and stone cold Space Boyfriend properly rounded all crewmates up, calmly asked if they were all sharing the sentiment, and apologized for his recent irrationalities. He said in a serious tone - and Orion promised themself to never forget this: - “I’ll be more pirate-y, aye? And I won’t cancel this trip. Nor any trip!”

Orion grinned, and raised their wooden tankard filled with golden mead as the words came back to him.

“To the Space Pirates!,” they shouted. “Aye!” and the mead spilled onto damp floorboards as they cheered with their drinks on the bottom floor of the Mercury Retrograde. 

-

Space Boyfriend had always been a firm believer in fate. Being born with the power to control the way in which various stars and planetary systems moved, was the first reason. The second reason was his role as Captain aboard the ship, inherited from his centuries-old father. The third one, and the most important one, he thought, was his relationship with Sweetheart. A string of fate had neatly tied his life together: he had everything he could ever ask for.

The night before had been one filled with laughter and off-key space shanties and alcohol, but the brisk morning came with a bustling and stressed crew preparing for their expedition on the approaching exoplanet ahead. Space Boyfriend loved the order in the chaos, the fluid movement of people up and about as he gave them strict orders to achieve a safe landing. Sweetheart loved to watch from her cabin on the ship, big glass windows letting all the information in but keeping the loud noises of (mostly) hangover crew out. This exoplanet had a viable atmosphere of mostly oxygen, because of its surprisingly varied and thick vegetation. Under normal circumstances, the captain would never have considered an expedition to a dwarf planet five thousand light years away. This planet, however, held plants with a naturally pale red pigment because of some minerals in its grout-like soil. It had been a planet first found by the navigator, of course, because Orion’s ability to scope out potential planets for Space Boyfriend (and themselves) was their pride.

At first, Orion had thought the captain’s orders to “set the course for whichever planet you think I would like” meant “set the course for the planet whose explosion would be the coolest”, but upon a short investigation involving secretly listening to the experimental melody Space Boyfriend was playing and developing on his synth, found this particular navigation order to mean “set course for a planet we can properly bring home”. So that’s why they had ended up on the pink dwarf planet they impulsively named “Romanticius LUX”.

Taking the first breath of crisp and sweet air on the planet felt good. Walking those first steps of a planet with a gravity half as strong as Overworld made every molecule in Space Boyfriend's legs vibrate with excitement, and with a determined mind he trod between low branches to find a proper and nice-looking cutting to give Sweetheart. The slightly brittle leaves crumbled under the weight of his boots, and a thick but low and resting fog dampened the soft crackling. The partially obscured sunlight came from a nearby unnamed white dwarf, sure to engulf and destroy the very planet he stood on when its motherly star would, inevitably, explode. He stopped in his tracks. A nearby fluorescent crab-like insect walked on a branch in front of him. They met eyes for a second, nodded, and both continued on their journey. After a little more exploring, he found a lovely bush no higher than a few feet that branched like a weeping willow but wore petals that looked like they were the same shade as Sweetheart’s pink eyes. 

He carefully used his obsidian sword to excavate the plant, carefully placing it in the Storage Pot Y he bought from Jash back on Overworld with a sample of the soil. The Storage Pot Y shrunk, with its tree and its soil, until it fit right back into the pocket of his jacket. Happy to have found such a nice plant, he decided to turn back to his fellow crewmates. Whistling a chipper tune, he stepped on a branch, heard its jarring snap and a second later went plummeting to the ground, face first in the low bush. He groaned. Around him it had gotten quiet, too quiet, save for the rustling sound of leaves above him and his own breathing. He knew his crew weren’t far behind, but still felt his chest cramp up when his eyes couldn’t focus on the soil beneath, obscured by a thick and rolling and alive fog. It did not want him there. He sat up, took a deep breath, unsheathed his sword and started to hastily make way in the direction which he came from, wherever that was. The starlight felt dimmer as the planet slowly turned on its axis, and the sweet-scented humidity felt nauseating. He kept pushing forward. One leg forward, the other, cut the snaring vines to escape. The tunnel he created in the leafage became smaller and smaller, and when he briefly turned his head to look behind him, a mileage of still vines had regrown. Space Boyfriend felt his legs give way and his vision grow blurry and felt betrayed by his own body when he hit the ground for a second time. This time he did not have the power to stand up on his own.

-

“Pirate gal, where is he?” said someone with an impatient tone.

Solus groaned for a third time. She was playing with her jacket zipper as all the data samples she wanted to collect had been written down, sitting on the edge of the upper deck and swinging her legs. She preferred the artificial gravity on the Mercury Retrograde over the lighter one on the Romanticius LUX that made her feel motion-sick. Unfortunately, Sweetheart did so too.

“He’s probably out foraging,” Solus said in a voice flatter than the previous times she had said the exact same thing. She turned her head, getting a few stray hairs out of her eyes and snapped back: “I don’t know! Go find him yourself if you’re that desperate!”

The taller and more royal of them had a disdained look on her face.

“Fine! I’ll do it myself since you, apparently, don’t know anything at all!” With a humph, Sweetheart made her way to the nearest Space Pirate on the planet and obtained a rough estimate as to where her Space Boyfriend was. The forest was pleasant to walk in, a clear path of slightly wilted petals leading her to a tunnel made of vines that looked like it was man-made. It was for her. She felt it, in the back of her head and in the marrow of her bones. Thi was where she was supposed to go. She picked up her pace, high heels impaling the exposed roots where she walked. And right when she was about to turn around and make someone else do this, she catched a glimpse of green. Green, and blue, and pink, and the whole of Space Boyfriend, in a pile, eyes closed and his stylized headset off-center.

The leaves behind felt threatening. She scoffed at the forest and turned her back.

She put his sword back in its casing, then sat down beside Space Boyfriend, humming one of the songs he had written for her. It was named Tilting Axis, one of the first songs he ever wrote for her. It made her feel special. With him, she had everything. She knew he would wake soon, because the plant life seemed less tense.

Of course, she was right. Sweetheart looked down at her lover’s waking face, bright red eyes adjusting to the light and catching her in his view. He had a slightly flushed face, scrambling to compose himself after remembering the trip. He sat up.

“H- hey,” he began, coughing. “How, uh, how’s everybody? No one’s, uh, hurt, right?”  
Sweetheart gave him a peck on the cheek. “No,” she said gently, voice warm as ever. “Only you.”

Space Boyfriend stood up, reaching out his gloved hand. It was stained and dirty, the texture rough against her skin. But she loved it when they walked side by side, hand in hand, out of the leafage, basking in the air’s sweet scent and in the sunlight of the starry sky before boarding the parked Mercury Retrograde. Halfway up the stairs, he stopped and turned to her. He let go of her one hand, taking the other in both of his hands. The pair was still, pausing to look into the other’s eyes with no regrets and no protection from their thoughts. His one eye that was stale and injured since birth was covered with an eyepatch. The other was a deep scarlet, a color that had grown to be her favorite. She looked back at her hands.

“Thank you, my Sweetheart,” he began, speaking softly. It wasn’t the smooth voice of a prince, no, it was the worn and wheezing and stable voice of a pirate captain who could be heard from anywhere if he wanted to. But not now, now was a time that she knew, his voice was for her, and her only, to hear. “I’d be nothing without you, you know?”

“You’re my Space Boyfriend,” she started. As she began to form her next words, she teared up. “please don’t leave me like that ever again. I was so scared.”

He embraced her, hugged her tightly and hard with one hand behind her head and the other on her back. The metal decorations and badges on his jacket pressed up against her chest. His heart was pounding, and so was hers. She buried her face in his shoulder, as did he in hers. She heard the stars up above twinkle. He calmed down and stepped away, wiping his eye with the fabric of his sleeve.

“I won’t. I’ll always be yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 formatting scares me so uh forgive me if it looks trash :P


	3. 1.2: spice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gift (special mixtape)

The swing of her mace chain was one she had grown fond of. Practicing the art of self defense in the royal garden had been an activity she always looked forward to, the destruction of whatever dummy had been built as satisfying as always. She enjoyed the freedom of the swinging chain, the fluidity of controlling the spiked weight on top, the way it seemed the end of her arms and the start of the weapon seemed to blur. A good half lifetime was enough to make the mace feel as much a part of her as the hole in her stomach.

The clash of metal was loud and clear, small sparks forming when their weapons met.

“Do you think you can win?” she said, between the faintest of breath. The eye of her sparring partner had a glimpse of playfulness.

“As long as my sword lasts,” he said, swinging the dull blade toward the other, “I can try.”

Her mace chain wrapped around his blade, nicking the edge before jerking both of them in her direction. They regained balance, pulling their weapons back with elegant force. She grinned, as did he when they continued to clash for a few more minutes until the practice blade promptly snapped in half, falling on the grass with a thud. He sighed, falling back in the late morning dew. She looked at him as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, resting his hand on his face while his breathing steadied. With the little energy she had left, her mace was swung across the rest of the area, landing behind a nearby hedge. She sat down by Space Boyfriend’s feet, the top of her shadow blocking the harsh rays of warming sunlight from his face. His eyelids were halfway opened and he sighed, removing his hand.

“Thanks.” there was a short pause. He closed his eyes again. She heard distant shuffling inside the castle, and the steady buzz of nearby cicadas. A light summer breeze danced across the garden landscape.

Space boyfriend took a deep breath, sat up straight and patted the grass beside him. She scuffled over, and he reached his arm behind her, steadying their place. They squinted, looking at the breaking sunrise for a few seconds.

“We’ve really got everything, you know?” he started, continuing to gaze at the puffy clouds on the horizon. They started to look like bunnies. “I’ve got you, I’ve got my ship, I’ve got my crew. It’s all I ever wanted in life, thanks to you.”

He looked at her. His one eye was a dark brown, enchanting and blissful as night, and the other eye, alive, red and vibrant, looked at hers. She envied his sentience in a repressing silence, preferring to block it out with thankfulness.

“I wanted to give you this, as a gift. It’s, uh, what I’ve been working on for the past month.” He reached into his pocket to pull out a mixtape. Suddenly his eyes widened. He dropped the mixtape in her lap and started to pat down his pockets. A draw of breath, and he pulled out a thick coin-shaped object.

“What is it?” She asked. He smirked, stole a kiss from her as he stood up, dusting the dirt from his pants and then flipping the coin. Right as it landed, a strange-looking tree appeared before them in a flash of green and red light. Her first reaction was to ask if it was a statue, but when the leaves softly brushed up against each other and the fragrance of sweet rose met her nose, her mind wandered back to the planet they had wandered the week before.

“How did you..? When..?”

He chuckled, putting his hand on his neck.

“I totally forgot!” He said. “It’s a gift. From me, to you, you know, when you, uh, helped me. Last week, on the… yeah.” A pause. He sighed. 

“I thought I had dropped it! Apparently I hadn’t.”

“This…” She began, looking at the plant and then at him. “This is kind of ugly.”

His face dropped, eyebrows down. He coughed: she could tell it was not genuine.

“It’s okay, though. I like it. It’s charming and it’s almost pink. Thank you, Space-y.”  
And with a peck on his cheek, she let go of him, smiling in an effort to keep his spirit up.

“It’s nine o’ clock. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Oh… Okay.”

She began to give orders to a sprout mole with armor and then walked into the looming castle. The heels of her shoes clicked against the damp cobblestone walkway, barely audible from where Space Boyfriend had been standing. He watched as her silhouette grew smaller and smaller, until she turned a corner and her figure disappeared out of sight. A sprout mole, no taller than three feet, was picking up the sparring weapons. He looked at it. It seemed to have no problem balancing the mace and chain on its head, wrapped around its stem. He swallowed. 

His sore hands picked up the plastic case for their songs and shoved it in his pocket. Tomorrow could be the day he gave it to her.

-

Mercury:

She was known for her arrogance and stubbornness, beauty and her beast. The first time Captain Spaceboy really saw it in person, he chose to see the passion and persistence in the raging flame behind her eyes instead. It was compassion and curiosity that she saw burn in his. The first time they had met, they were dancing at a colorful bar. The lights were dim and the night old, but as they set eyes on each other, time could have just been born and lights could have been bright as day. They had fun. He wanted her, she wanted him. They danced with each other, the music easy and light and memorable. He could still hear her hum the tune when she was bored or trying to concentrate. He would come up behind her and lean his arms against hers, swaying to her tune. In those moments, he could feel her warmth. Her flame, her passion, her heartbeat, her beauty. 

Venus:

The two of them were often seen together. The beat of the other’s heart felt like the breeze in the wind or the dew in the grass. It was there, it was close, it was available and it was a constant. They had bought cheap rings from a toy machine, plastic rhinestones and aluminium metal. The rings were those of promise. A promise to be the other in spirit and in body and to let their bond grow stronger every day by nurturing their days spent.

Earth:

Sweetheart was mildly aggressive. She often tried to laugh things off. He knew she was under a lot of stress. She would occasionally start to ramble about her day when they were cuddling at night. It could start off by a small inconvenience, an accident so, so, small. And then she would continue and the problems would pile and her words spilled onto the bed and into his head and the tears kept poking at her eyes and she felt tense. Tense, until the soft touch of a rough hand caressed her cheek. He’d breathe slowly, so slowly, and she would follow him. A deep breath. Two. The tears stopped falling. Three. She looked at his face. He’d be smiling in the same, tired manner he usually was. Four. She closed her eyes. It was comfortable. Five. She felt her consciousness growing hazy in a way that the clouds changed their shapes and in a way that the waves crashed together in the sea. Captain Spaceboy was no mind reader, but he liked to think he was helpful in evenings like these. When she was vulnerable, he could be there, a platform for future strength and support. Laughing it off or not, he could be there. He would be there.

Jupiter:

Captain Spaceboy loved it when Sweetheart would follow him along on Mercury Retrograde. To be in his element, with the love of his life, and his crew and his family, it was blissful. Laughing, edging each other on to do stupid stuff, screaming, falling, hugging, laughing again. They could get through anything together and their reputation reflected that. “The power-crazed couple” was a rumor that had spread across intergalactic underground spaces and it was something the captain was proud of. A testament to their devotion to each other and their interests. A way for their otherworldly emotions to release, blow up a planet, shoot into a pond filled with purple gas, smash the only tower on an ancient and overgrown planet into a million little pieces of dust and stone. 

Saturn:

Sweetheart was fond of gifts. They were often grandiose and from countries afar, large parcels with thick ribbons and a golden sheen. Space Boyfriend was jealous. He wanted to have gifted them all to her, wanted them all to be able to start showing the scale of his emotions. Deep down he knew, all the presents in the world couldn’t begin to cover what she meant for him. Her very presence gave his life meaning, real meaning, beyond space and plundering and reputation: his fulfillment grew as their relationship blossomed. He showed it in a way he could, by holding her and whispering sweet words in her ear and baking her a strawberry birthday cake and holding her hand when she grew nervous and laughing with her during awkward moments. Sometimes he felt that wasn’t enough, he felt he needed to give her the universe and its energy. He thought about it and asked her once what she would have wanted. She had answered for him to be hers, fully, devoted to her with every molecule of his body. He didn’t hesitate, because it was a request he had already fulfilled since the very first day they had met. From then on he was Space Boyfriend. Because who else would he be?

Uranus:

They enjoyed being near the docks. A foggy atmosphere and the rippling of a sea. The smell of salt and seaweed, sand between their toes and warmth throughout. Letting his crew take care of the Mercury Retrograde, the captain knew deep down that he had become domesticated by the princess. He enjoyed the small, the simple. The moments where it was just him and her and nothing in particular, were the moments where he felt that the universe was large, it was huge and it was warm and it was Sweetheart and it was Space Boyfriend. 

Neptune:

Space Boyfriend wasn’t finished with his Solar System. He had eyes on the dwarf-planet Pluto, but was still unsure of his pursuit. Empty space of black tape shrank every day. When he wrote songs in his room he often found himself tapping his feet to a slow pulse. A soft pluck of the guitar. While he frequently made tunes that were chipper and fast paced, this melody felt stripped and slow, his raspy bass vocals murmuring the words scribbled on his notebook. He recorded it in one go, didn’t have a second listen to it to catch mistakes or refine the tunes. He didn’t want to. That last bit of tape contained his emotions. He could only hope that Sweetheart would listen.

-

“Just give it to her already!”

Naturally, Orion was tired. Space Boyfriend was pacing back and forth in his room, occasionally sitting down on his bed just to continue pacing after a short while. Waiting for their captain was something Orion was used to, but it was not something they enjoyed.

“But what if she doesn’t like it!” Space Boyfriend had exclaimed for the whateverth time. Orion sighed loudly out of frustration. 

“She will like it! Drop it off at her castle already so we can go!” they pleaded, bouncing their leg as they leaned back in the rolling chair. “Just go...o...o…” They spun around.

Solus, who had stood in the doorway for the past ten minutes, noticed how the captain started to zone out and hastily made the decision to cut this one-sided conversation short and snatch the mixtape from his hands, strolling back down the stairs. Space Boyfriend took a moment to notice before he began to shout and run after the crewmate. Orion was quick to follow, a grin plastered on their sun-kissed face as they boarded the Mercury Retrograde. 

The ship was lively and filled to the brim with empty wooden crates and thick ropes that snaked around in piles close to the walls. While the sun deck was half the size of the decks below, a deck cut off by the upper levels of half decks that towered above the crewmates and curved slightly, it was a deck that could fit them all and where most preferred to be (unless they were riding at ridiculously high speeds, times where most decided to concentrate on not throwing up). The first floor of the half-deck, the tower, was preceded by a grand entrance with intricate carvings of glazed wood and metal, telling a story of space, sea and sky. The door it surrounded was, in comparison, simple; consisting of wooden planks painted light with a handle made of visibly aged brass. 

Solus was running with Space Boyfriend hot on her heels, the two of them made their way through the doorway, up the steep and narrow stairs to the upper tower deck, into the compact kitchen. 

“I’ve got you now!” said Space Boyfriend, huffing as he cornered the crewmate against a refrigerator and a half-empty barrel of rum. He wore his signature smirk - the same one he often brought along to forage trips and expeditions. Solus found her mission was finished, because the captain was on his ship for once, and handed him the mixtape without any resistance.

“You’re welcome,” she said, squeezing herself out of the kitchen and onto the second floor hallway. The ship had started to hum and the metal appliances hanging on the wall clanked against each other. Solus was quick to make her way up to the third floor, where the stairs curved slightly inward along the thin but strong hull - until they met with a plain-looking door. It opened with a creak. She made a mental note to oil the hinges. 

“Hey Souls!” Orion said, briefly looking up from the sleek cartography table with a smile. Solus went over to them and leaned into the holographic map of nearby space. Her face lit up with mapped stars and planets. They chuckled. 

“I could’ve sworn you finished planning out this course yesterday,” she began, pulling her head up from the holograph. Her vision became a little blurry. “Didn’t you?”

Orion nodded, pressing a button so that the set course showed up in red, a stark contrast from its blue standard.

“I just had to refine some things. See this here?” They pointed at a small zig in the mostly smooth course. “Apparently there’s gonna be a heavy asteroid storm. I don’t want to take the risk, especially after what happened last time we flew into one of those.”

Solus shuddered, glancing at a still remaining dent. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s good to be… safe.”

“But!” Orion changed their tone. “We’re gonna take a pit stop at Sweetheart’s Castle first. Strap in.”

The navigator walked to the steering wheel, looking over the lavender planet through the enormous glass pane. They flicked a few switches and pressed a couple of buttons, Solus saw a fair few lights turn on before she occupied herself with the recently dug-up plants from a planet where the atmosphere consisted mostly of sulphite. Although they were plain and simple, small and fragile, stored in glass casing with nutrient-rich soil from a gardener in Vast Forest, they were a spectacle for their cellular structure. Consisting of mostly square, or on occasion, rectangle shaped membranes, they seemed to react quickly to the most miniscule change of their nutrients. One of the samples, a single strand of something that looked like grass, had accidentally had it’s pot knocked over and without supervision it grew tenfold until two people had to carry it down the stairs. Nowadays Solus made sure to keep them snug and secure in their own casing and fastened to the wall. The ship stopped humming. Someone scooted a rolling chair across the floor.

“We’re here!” smiled Orion. They clapped their hands together, following Solus downstairs.

-

He had to do it. He had to do it now or it was never and if it was never then why had he put so much effort into it? Should he have made more effort? Would that have made him less anxious? 

Probably not, but here he stood, mixtape and colorful bouquet in hand, waiting for Sweetheart to answer the door to her balcony. He knocked a second time, turning around to see his fellow subordinates (and ship) looming over him. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and turned around the same time as the princess opened the door. He tensed up, stiff as a board, holding out the flowers and the mixtape.

“Sweetheart! My Sweetheart,” he began, feeling the lump in his throat grow smaller. He reached out to hug her. “How I wished I had done this yesterday.”

Sweetheart glanced at the grandfather clock in her room. It ticked rhythmically. When the clock striked eight in the morning, a small blue bird would pop out of the clock’s face and chirp. 

“Technically it’s still yesterday. Today. You’re so silly. My silly Space Boyfriend.”

He grinned. He didn’t have much on his head anymore, except for the girl in front of him. Her pajamas were striped in pink and white. Her long hair was braided, but Space Boyfriend tucked a stray hair behind her ear. He kissed her briefly.

“I made this.” He gave her the mixtape. “It’s the songs that… Well, they… They remind me of you. Of us.” He felt blood rush up to his cheeks with every word.

Sweetheart tilted her head and smiled sheepishly. 

“Thanks, Space-y. It means a lot. I’ll listen to it when I wake up.”

“I’ll be back before you know it. Sorry for, uh, breaking into your house at night. Sorry.”

“Yeah. Be safe, my dearest,” she said, taking the flowers.

The transparent glass door was partially obscured by flowy curtains, but Space Boyfriend could just barely see her place the bouquet and the mixtape on her bedside table. He was the last to board the Mercury Retrograde, eyes fixated on the castle for as long as he could until they were long out of sight from Headspace, much less a singular castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slams fists on table* SPACE PIRATES THEYRE PIRATES IN SPACE  
> hope this chapter was nice :)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever OMORI fic and of course it's about Capt. Spaceb- I mean Space Boyfriend :)  
> It's gonna be a hefty one but if you like it let me know!


End file.
